The feed resumes as Ruby is looking at the moons of Reach, their mystical glow always surrounding them. A Phantom passes overhead, searchlight sweeping the valley. Jun, just ahead of her, motions his head to get Ruby to come after him before jumping over a rock.
"Recon Team Bravo reporting: Three and Six in position. It's starting to get crowded up here, Kat." He explains over the comms.
"Then we're closing in. Report any Covenant structures or devices. Direct action may be necessary." Kat directs.
"Copy that." He chuckles a bit, "When Kat runs an op, direct action is always necessary."
"You got that right." Ruby agreed.
He handed her a magazine of ammo, "Here. You may need these. High-velocity, armor-piercing. They'll take the hat off an Elite at two thousand yards. And they ain't cheap."
"Well, you sure know how to treat a girl."
Jun does a double take at her remark, but just shakes his head, as he climbs a boulder. "I'm starting to see why Kat likes you so much, I'll be in touch."
Ruby then slides down the cliff, landing quietly on a plateau below.
"Recon Bravo, the sector ahead is dark to electronic surveillance." Kat warns the duo.
"Covenant can block our instruments?" Jun questions.
"So it would seem, and Command wants to know what they're hiding."
Ruby makes her way up the mound nearby, seeing an Elite facing away from her.
"Elite, he's yours. Do it quiet." Jun says.
She slowly makes her way behind it, before jumping up it's back and burying her knife into its skull. It starts to cry out, but dies before it can do anything, collapsing to the ground where Ruby drags the body away.
"Not bad. How many times have you done this?" Jun questions
She then spots a few Grunts sleeping nearby, swiftly dealing with them as well,
"Once or twice." she offers, taking out the rifle and dropping the Elite on the ground below her, before the others could notice, then using her semblance to switch positions quickly, drawing her pistol to shoot the Grunts and Jackals.
"Indeed." He says as she jumps down and finds a armour module, taking it before putting it on her suit.
"Found some active camo, be useful coming up." Jun had caught up to her and nodded before they both moved up. They found a rock with a dead trooper by ut with more ammo for the pistol and a medkit.
"Recon Bravo to Noble Two, stand by for contact report." Jun said over the comms, as they overlooked the bluff they were standing on, a small village was swarmed with Covenant troops.
"Standing by to copy, over."
"We have eyes on multiple hostiles patrolling a settlement. This what we're looking for, Kat?"
"Negative, too small, you're not in the dark zone yet. Engage at your own discretion, but keep moving."
"You heard her, Six. Drop those tangoes."
The Elites that Ruby could see were quickly dropped, before a beam of plasma brought her focus away from them.
"Tch!" she called out, hiding behind the rock, "Camoed focus rifles." She explained, activating her own camo and looking towards where the beam came from.
She saw the shimmer and in the next moment it was a corpse in the ground, another beam fired in her general direction, but missed, and it was soon dead too.
"Incoming. Looks like we really pissed them off." Jun warned as a Phantom was seen inbound
"Got yah," Ruby affirmed, before dropping the Elites that came out. With the command gone from the troops, the grunts were running scared, many taking out grenades out of fear and running in random directions until they blew up, thereby taking out most of the rest of the forces, only a few jackals managed to escape unscathed, until they got a 14.5mm bullet going at almost mach 3 through the brain.
That dealt with, the two Spartans made their way down, following a path they saw, Ruby using her semblance to swiftly deal with the Jackals they came across.
Progressing, the recon duo come across a clearing with two massive tusked creatures. They had long curved claws, were about 30 ft tall, and in the process of attacking a small squadron of Covenant.
"Look at that!" Jun called out, as the Grunts ran screaming as the behemoths smooshed them into the ground.
"What on Remnant is that?!" Weiss exclaimed standing up, and eyeing Ruby with a mixture of confusion and terror,
"Just keep watching," Ruby assured.
As the beasts finished toying with the Covenant infantry, they turned towards the Spartans before roaring and charging upon them,
"Major enemy, incoming." Jun notified over the coms
The creatures take multiple sniper rounds from Jun, as Ruby used her semblance to land on one of the creature's heads and sniping it at point blank range as it tried to throw her off. It fell quickly as Jun finished the other one.
"Kat, pick any of that up?" he asked, shaking his head at Ruby again.
"Affirmative, Recon Bravo. It's an indigenous creature called Gúta."
They walk through the clearing as Jun sees a small gap in the cliffedge surrounding them."Red, there's a trail up ahead through the rocks. Let's take it."
"Got ya,"
The pair made their way along the trail, encountering the ostrich-like birds they met earlier, as gunfire reached their ears.
"Gunfire. Magnums, security sidearms. Standard issue." Jun relsied, as they continued forward.The trail opened up to a pumping station. A bunch of farmers could be seen under attack by Covenant forces.
"Noble Two, that's some sort of pump station. Got eyes on civilians, I'm thinking more local militia, they've engaged hostiles." Jun reported to Kat,
"Move to assist. They may have intel we need."
"You heard her, Six. Keep those civilians alive."
Ruby saw a sniper on a small bluff, and went to it to get more ammo before taking aim. The Elites fighting the militia fell to the ground, followed by the Skirmishers shortly after.
As Jun approached the Militia connected to their comms, and she heard one say,
"Give us a hand! Bastards just keep comin'."
The remaining forces were quickly eliminated, as Ruby met up with the group in the central area of the pump station, where she saw some cases of UNSC weapons.
"Little more action than we're used to. You Spartans are good in a fight." one of the troopers said,
"What are you doing here? Whole area's supposed to be evacuated." Jun questioned, as Ruby opened a case, another rifle with a DMR was in the case.
"Didn't like leaving it to someone else to protect our home. So we came back, for this. We have 'em hidden all over the territory."
The remaining briefcases open to show an assortment of other UNSC weapons.
You know this stuff is stolen." Ruby said, turning to them.
"What? You gonna arrest me?"
"No. Gonna steal it back." Jun said playfully,
A Phantom engine roared as the group whip round to see it, before getting into defensive positions.
The incoming Covenant were quickly dispatched, but as they were just being eliminated, two more phantoms showed up, replenishing their numbers.
"We've got company." Jun warned,
"You weren't wrong, they do just keep coming." Ruby huffed, sniping a Jackal mid-air. After they finally took the reinforcements down, Jun turned to Ruby and shrugged,
"Nothing here but that lake."
"Road leads to a hydroelectric plant, but the gate doesn't work." a trooper announced, listening in on them, Jun turned to face the man,
"Alternate route?"
"We use the riverbed to smuggle rations, weapons..."
"Basically anything the UNSC considers contraband, then." Ruby said, finishing his sentence for him.
"Basically."
"Show us." Jun commanded.They led them to a dried up riverbed between the cliffs, Ruby and Jun took point as the troopers followed behind.
"Where does this riverbed lead?" Jun asked, as they walked along the now path through the cliffs.
"Straight to the hydro plant." one of them responded, "We dammed this river up forty-five years ago, plant powers every settlement in the territory. Shame if it all gets wasted."
"We're doing what we can." Ruby assured them.
A Phantom could be heard, and everyone fell to the cliffside."Hold up. Covie dropship, take cover." Jun gave, the pretty much needless order, but no-one questioned him.The Phantom passes them by, after taking a moment to survey the area.
"Okay, clear. Let's move."
They continue on, eventually reaching the plant, which is swarmed with Covenant, and an articulate structure, near the cliffside the plant was on.
"What is that thing?" Weiss asked, looking at the tower-like structure,
"Cloaking pilon," Ruby replied, "Blocks transmissions from satellites and most radio frequencies."
"Kat, are you seeing this? Covenant structure, kind of a big pylon. Heavily fortified." Jun said, as Ruby looked through the scope of her rifle, ready to drop the Elites at the word.
"That's the source of our dark zone."
"Ok, consider it gone."
"Negative, stick a remote det charge on it. Command's planning something big, they say that pylon dies at dawn."
"We gonna blow it?" a trooper asked, as they hid behind some rocks,
"We're gonna clear the area, and I'm gonna plant a remote det charge. You want to provide some cover, go right ahead.
As this was said, the Elite Ruby was scoping at fell to the ground, and the one next to it, and so on, it was at this point the rest of the Covenant troops caught wind of their location and started firing on them. The militia troopers began to retaliate, taking out the Jackals and Grunts, trying to make their way across the bridge towards the plion.
Shortly after, they gave the all clear and Ruby heard a "Hey" from the pilon.
"This is gonna take a minute, keep your eyes peeled." Jun said, going to plant the charge,
"I knew you trusted me," She mocked as she went up to get a better vantage point.Two Phantoms appeared over the hill and began firing their turrets at the troopers, who with little time to react, were unfortunately slain.
"Recon Bravo to Noble two." Ruby began grimly as she took out the turrets. "Civvies are down."
"How are you that desensitised to death?" Blake asked, a little worry creeping into her voice, Ruby just shrugged.
"I stared death in the face on a daily basis, it doesn't get any less grim, but he loses his power over you after a while. When you're in the heat of a firefight, can't let the death of your comrades get to you, makes you lose focus."
The rest of the team felt a shiver run down their spine at that.
The Phantoms dropped two Hunters, and as Ruby watched two mirages that were quickly realised as Spec-op Elites which were dead before they hit the ground.
"Need a little help down here…" Jun called out, as the growls of the Hunters could be heard below.
"Got it." Ruby replied, picking up 2 grenades from an ammo rack near her.
"What are you going to do with those?" Yang asked, getting curious.
"Just watch…" Was Ruby's reply.
A burst of petals and she was facing the hunters, which now gave her undivided attention. They charged up their canons and fired at her, but she dodged swiftly, going behind them and taking a pin out of the first grenade and jamming it into the body of worms, it caused the hivemind to stand up straight, and go to slam her into the ground, but before it could do anything, she was behind it's brother. Another well-placed grenade, and she appeared beside Jun, who turned round just to see the two hunters explode in a tidal wave of orange blood and worm parts.
"Really?" Jun asked, shaking the chunks of worm off his gun,
"Really." Ruby replied, as happy as a schoolgirl who just got a pony.
"Why…?" Weiss asked.
"Duh.." Yang answered for her sister, "Because it's freaking awesome!"
"You've got to admit it's effective though," Ruby reasoned, after giving her sister a high-five.
"But it gets everywhere!" the heiress protested, "Not to mention down-right gross."
"Oh calm down, a good pressure wash and it's fine."
Jun sighed before reporting, "Recon Bravo to Noble Two, charge placed."
"Somewhere inconspicuous, I hope."
"Stuck it inside the pylon's power supply."
"Alright. Keep pushing into the dark zone. Command wants to know what the Covenant are hiding."
"There's a gate to the southeast of the power plant." Ruby spotted
"Copy. Uploading security codes to you now."
"Okay, got 'em. Unlocking the gate."
"Recon Bravo, you're heading into the dark zone now."
"Understood."The Spartans head through the gate, coming into contact with Covenant immediately, they were killed before they even realised what was going on.
The duo advanced further, engaging more Covenant troops and a spherical turret, rotating it a 360 ark.
"Shade!" Jun called out, but it jerked away from them as Ruby had sniped the gunner before he could notice,
"Easy," Ruby scoffed.
They advanced further, as many Banshees passed by overhead, though they ignored the Spartans.
"Lotta air traffic around here, Red. I think we're getting warm."
They advanced further, Ruby picking off the Shade turrets first, and then the infantry. The remaining troops gather around a hole in the cliffs and they could see a purple mass behind them.
"Noble Two, we have eyes on at least one Covenant ship." Jun notified
"Solid copy. Don't stop now."
They eliminated the hostiles and pushed forward, reaching the gap that was trying to be fortified, they get down, crawl forward to reveal a large area, glowing with red and purple lights, massive guns pointing towards the sky, and many corvettes and even bigger ships on standby about the place.
"Gods…" Blake breathed.
"What are those?"
"Covenant carriers, each about a kilometer in length, can take a 20 megaton nuke to the face and not be fazed, so yeah. Take up most of the Covenant fleets, and not to be trifled with. First mission of the Spartan IIs against the Covenant was to take just one down, and even then there was a casualty, yes, they may have not had shields on their armour then, but still, they were made to be invincible, and first mission, one dies."
Weiss paled as Ruby just gestured to the to the feed again.
"Jackpot." Jun muttered."Transmitting visual." Ruby announced, "You seeing this, Katty?"
"Confirmed." Kat replied, "Receiving Noble Three and Noble Six's live visual of a Covenant strike force."
"That's no strike force, it's an invading army." Jun corrected, "If we're gonna smother this thing, we need to go in hard and fast."
"Agreed. All recon teams disengage and fall back. Sun will be up in a few hours… and it's going to be a very busy day."
"Soo… you go up against that?"
Weiss asks, to which Ruby nodded.
"And it was a success?"
She waved her hand in a 'maybe' fashion, "Depending on which way you look at it, yeah, it was."
"What do you mean, 'depending on which way you look at it.' either you won or lost."
"You seriously think war is that black and white?" Ruby laughed
"Well from the reports Winter sends me-"
"Ok, yeah, sure, let's go with the Atlas specialist who, let's be realistic here, has probably a few hours of firefighting experience, over someone who has done this for over half my life."
"But-"
"I'll not completely drive your sister into the dirt Weiss, but there's two major problems with your assumption; 1 Winter's reports to you will be the simple ones, so you don't worry what she is up against, and 2 I could floor her in a 1 on 1 and you know that. I may have not had the extensive training the II's had, but when it comes to military strategy, I know it can take centuries to fully analyse the strategic value of some battles, even if it was to the side that lost, not everything is a clear win/lose scenario, yes Reach fell, but as you will see soon enough, we may have the turning point of the war on our hands now. So yes, depending on which way you look at it, the next mission was a success and a fail."
Weiss sat quietly as the feed fast forwarded to the next point of intrest.